Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(4)

‘One of you put a sock in my mouth so I couldn’t scream for help.’

She wanted to apologise. Say sorry for what she had done. She had spent most of her adult life running away from the memory of that day. But it had never worked. The shame of it had always been with her.

Please, just let me explain, her mind screamed through the numbness. If she could just have a minute to think she was sure she could say the right thing.

She managed to open her mouth. But before she could summon the strength to speak something was forced in through her lips. Her tongue recoiled from the thick dry substance.

‘All I hear when I go to sleep is the sound of your laughter.’

Another handful of dirt entered her mouth. She could feel it travelling down and clogging her airway. A scream was building in her throat, but it couldn’t find a way out.

‘I will never hear your laughter again.’

Another handful was forced in and then a palm clamped over her face. Her cheeks bulged as the dirt tried to rearrange itself to make room. The only exit it had was to try to escape down her throat.

She could feel the breath leaving her body.

She tried to writhe away from the hand covering her mouth. In her mind the movement was strong and forceful. It emerged as a pathetic wriggle.

‘And then you held me down, didn’t you, Jemima?’

Is this what it had felt like? she wondered, as her body fought for breath.

She could feel the life draining out of her and into the ground. Her mind screamed the protest that her body could not.

For a second the hand moved and Jemima had a fleeting hope that it was over.

Something hit her in the middle of her face. She heard the sound of cracking bone a second before the pain exploded around her head. Blood spurted from her nose and cascaded over her lips.

The agony travelled to her mouth, causing her to cry out even though she could make no sound. The action sent more dirt travelling down her throat.

Her gag reflex tried to eject it, and she began to choke. She tried to swallow the arid ground, but it was sticking to the sides of her throat like freshly poured tar.

Tears forced themselves from her eyes as she tried to find a breath somewhere in her body.

A second blow landed on her cheek.

Her mind screamed out with the agony.

She writhed against the ground. Her cries of terror were held in the dirt.

A third blow landed on her mouth. Teeth burst away from her gums.

Every inch of her had succumbed to the pain as the calm voice reached her once more.

‘I will no longer see your face in my dreams.’

She had one last thought before the darkness claimed her.

Please, just let me die.





Three





Kim knocked once before entering the domain of her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Woodward, who resided in a corner office on the third floor of Halesowen Police Station.

The landline was at his ear. Mild annoyance shaped his features before he ended the call abruptly.

‘Didn’t feel like waiting for the word “enter”?’ he growled.

‘Er… you asked to see me, sir,’ she said. It’s not like he didn’t know she was coming.

He checked his watch. ‘Almost an hour ago.’

‘Really, that long?’

She stood behind the chair that faced him.

He sat back and offered her an expression that her best guess said was a smile. But she wouldn’t bet her house on it.

‘Congratulations on a positive result yesterday with the Ashraf Nadir case. Had you not been so insistent that there were more people involved in that prostitution ring we would never have found the second property.’

Kim accepted the compliment. Woody had managed to condense her dogged effort into one single sentence. If she recalled correctly it had taken four separate requests to investigate Ashraf Nadir after she’d spotted him talking with a male suspected of involvement in the publicised Birmingham case. She hadn’t exactly camped outside his office but she’d been close to buying a tent.

She took a step back to leave.

‘Not quite yet, Stone. I have a couple of questions.’

Oh, if only she’d been called to his office just for a pat on the back. Too late she realised the completed statements from her team on the Nadir raid were neatly piled on his desk.

He popped the reading glasses onto his nose and lifted the first page of the top statement, which he really did not need to do. Kim knew that any questions he wanted to ask her were already in his head.

‘I’d like you to clarify the time difference between receipt of the warrant and entry to the Nadir property.’

‘Marginal, sir,’ she answered honestly.

‘Minutes or seconds?’ he asked.

‘Seconds.’

‘Double figures or single?’ he asked, removing his glasses and staring at her, hard.

‘Single.’

He placed the glasses on the desk. ‘Stone, was the warrant in place before you entered the property?’

She didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes, it was.’ She didn’t add the word ‘just’. She also decided it was best not to add that she’d been about to go in anyway. She tended to get in enough trouble for her impetuous acts of judgement. Adding in near misses was a whole new story.

He eyed her suspiciously for a few seconds before tapping the statements with his fingers.